Rivals Make Dd Image Conscious

The Prasar Bharati Board has set up a four-member committee to spruce up Doordarshans programming and marketing profile. The panel will also recommend measures DD could take to ensure a minimum standard of quality, especially in serials, to take on the likes of STAR Plus and Sony Entertaintment TV.

The panel, which held its first meeting in Mumbai recently, was to have come up with recommendations by the first week of January, but has now asked for an extension till the second week. The programming and marketing revamp is aimed at wooing back audiences and advertisers who had been weaned away by satellite channels.

 

The committee is the outcome of a series of meetings that DD and All India Radio chief executive S S Gill held with advertisers, programmers and airtime sellers in Delhi and Mumbai.

The CEO has promised the expert committee that their recommendations would be implemented immediately as the Prasar Bharati board is serious about giving a facelift to DDs programming and marketing setup, said DD sources said.

The panel has representations from all the parties concerned and comprises Dr S Chandrasekhar, head of DDs audience research; Roda Mehta of Ogilvy & Mather (representing the advertising agencies), Harish Thawani of Nimbus (representing software producers) and a senior executive of Nirma Ltd (representing advertisers).

The sources said the panel had more or less identified the problem areas and how they could be rectified. For example, Thawani, whose company Nimbus produces a number of programmes for DD, has assured the other panel members that in future most private programme suppliers to DD would adhere to high production values.

The panel members are also of the opinion that the transmission quality of DD - both terrestrial and satellite - has to be improved immediately as quality is heavily hit during transmission at present.

The sources said in this connection, the panel is of the opinion that the information and broadcasting ministrys help is a must. The members feel the ministry should get involved and see that the clause in the Cable Regulation Act, which insists that all cable operators show two DD channels as part of the fare offered, is amended.

The cable operators have to be told that they have to show both DD-1 and DD-2 and receive them through a dish antenna, which will minimise loss in audio and video quality, the sources said.

At present, many cable operators, especially in the metros, receive both DD-1 and DD-2 terrestrially and then re-transmit them to subscribers.

Meanwhile, hype and hoopla by satellite channels notwithstanding, Doordarshan is still the big brother where ad spend is concerned. Despite the ad hours being 50 per cent less on Doordarshan last year, compared to satellite channels, the revenue mopped up by DD increased by about 40 per cent.

While advertisement spend increased by Rs 322 crore in 1996 over 1995, DDs revenue went up by Rs 125 crore an increase of 40 per cent over the 1995 figures, according to an internal note prepared by Mandi House on the performance of DD vis-